Connect with TRB

International Workshop on High-Speed Rail Planning and Operations

The research teams lead by Dr. Xuesong Zhou, Dr. Mikhail Chester at Arizona State University, and Dr. Lei Zhang at the University of Maryland plan to host an International Conference on High-speed Rail Planning and Operations that aims to bring together leading researchers and practitioners from across different countries and different areas of study, to present their research and perspectives on important aspects of high-speed rail, such as economic and accessibility impacts, national-level multi-modal transportation planning analysis, operations research and advanced train control systems. The conference will be of interest to audiences from academia, agencies (e.g. US Department of Transportation (DOT), state DOTS and highway administrations and large metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs)) and rail industrial partners, and to the transportation planning and modeling audiences in general. The conference will have invited speakers from China, Japan, Denmark as well as private-sector rail companies in the united states, such as CSX and BNSF, to present their perspectives on how to address challenges in planning, building and operating high-speed rail in the United States, and how to create an informed/skilled workforce that can aid policy makers on the role of high speed rail (HSR) in the context of the current inter-city multimodal transportation system. The conference will be held in cooperation with Transportation Research Board, INFORMS Railway Application Section, and possibly international leading rail research institutes such as State Key Lab of Rail Traffic Control &amp; Safety at Beijing Jiaotong University, China. The conference will be held at the Arizona State University Campus, located in the Phoenix metropolitan area between October 25-27, 2015. Phoenix is accessible via major airlines. In recent years, high-speed rail (HSR) has been offered as a sustainable (energy and environment) mass transit alternative to the overworked highways. Multiple economic and demographic indicators (such as population and fuel cost) project that high-speed rail will grow in importance in the United States and Canada for corridors of less than 300 miles. North America lags behind other nations in high speed rail operating mileage and, consequently, lags behind in education programs. Many universities in the United States have recognized the need to create an informed/skilled workforce that can aid policy makers on the role of HSR in the context of the current inter-city multimodal transportation system. Despite the proactive efforts from many planners and researchers, the challenge for the university/rail industrial communities in supporting the education and training of HSR students in the United States is understanding and meeting North American requirements. It must be recognized that the majority of technical expertise in high speed rail originates in Europe and East Asia. Since the geography and rail freight traffic mix of North American differ significantly from that of these regions, many of these methods and assumptions need to be modified for North American applications.